By Canadian Press

Canada will shell out almost $70 billion for its new warships, PBO report says

Jun 21, 2019 | 9:51 AM

OTTAWA — Parliament’s budget watchdog says Canada’s 15 new warships will cost almost $70 billion over the next quarter-century.

A Canadian government estimate in 2017 pegged the price of the project at around $60 billion.

At the time, the parliamentary budget office estimated the total cost of the ships to be $61.8 billion, but its report released Friday updates that to reflect the specific design of the ships, which wasn’t known at the time.

The Canadian government will now pay out $69.8 billion over 26 years, the PBO estimates, and billions more if the project is delayed.

The cost breaks down to $5.3 billion in pre-production costs, $53.2 billion to build the ships and $11.4 billion in other costs.

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Costs have gone up largely because of a later start date and a revision to buy bigger ships than expected, the PBO said.

The Canadian Press